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Week 1 Resources – Bendito Machine #edcmooc

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What is this film suggesting are the ecological and social implications of an obsession or fixation on technology?

Technology becomes the centre of everyone’s attention. None of the characters interact with each other. They are all focused on the technology. No one cares about the characters who are injured or killed by the technology. When one form of technology is replaced by another, the previous technology is simply dumped without any effort being made to repurpose it.

Do the film’s characters have any choice in relation to their technologies?

I would say no. The technology is chosen for them by a character who goes away and brings it back. The new technology is received passively and as something to be worshiped.

What are the characteristics of various technologies as portrayed in this film?

The technology doesn’t really seem to serve any purpose. Given the facial expression that appears on the screen of the second technology to be introduced, it would seem that the machine is being depicted as evil or as having evil intent.

Other reflections

The character that discovers and brings the technology back to the village ascends a mountain to obtain the new technology. This implies some sort of transcendent experience, perhaps indicating that the intention is good but that, in the final analysis, the technology is not used appropriately. Once it is brought down to a ‘lower’ level, it loses its potential due to the fact that the other users of the technology are not as ‘enlightened’ as the character who finds it or to whom it has been given.